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Do You Carry At Home?
- Thread starter Moonglum
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Carl the Floor Walker
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A locked door with a alarm sensor very well could have made a huge difference.
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shurshot said:How many locked doors will stop a well placed boot or shoulder from an adrenaline fueled thug(s) from gaining entry? Most won't.
I don't know how many locked doors will stop a well-placed boot but I'll bet you those do a better job than unlocked doors.
Carl the Floor Walker
Moderator
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I live right off a highway. But even if I didn't, just knowing that criminals know that most people won't be prepared, makes me want to be.
If I've gotten dressed for the day, it's usually in something that I can pocket carry with. Into the pocket it goes, and there it stays until I change into something to sleep and I'm usually the last one asleep in the house. This way I don't have to worry about having it on / off me depending on if I go out.
Sure pocket carry is slower on the draw in many circumstances, but with 4 young children around I value the security, concealment, and convenience.
If I've gotten dressed for the day, it's usually in something that I can pocket carry with. Into the pocket it goes, and there it stays until I change into something to sleep and I'm usually the last one asleep in the house. This way I don't have to worry about having it on / off me depending on if I go out.
Sure pocket carry is slower on the draw in many circumstances, but with 4 young children around I value the security, concealment, and convenience.
Aguila Blanca
Staff
The basement door was unlocked, and the alarm wasn't activated, because they lived in a "good" area. They didn't think anything would/could happen.Moonglum said:To be fair a locked door would have done as much to save the Petit family as a gun. The criminals gained entry through an unlocked basement door and attacked the father sleeping on a couch.
The point is that living in a "good" area is not an assurance that bad things won't happen. Expecting that living in a "good" area is absolute protection against bad things happening is magickal thinking, about on a par with thinking that posting a "No Guns Allowed" sign will deter a nut case with a gun from coming in and shooting up the joint.
I live in an upscale gated neighborhood, but I don't consider that to imply any sort of immunity to crime. I carry IWB outside the house. When I am home long enough to change clothes, I carry in a pocket holster or have the holstered pistol nearby, such as on a side table while watching TV. When my granddaughter is here (frequent visit by a three-year-old) it goes in a quick-access box, as it does at night.
Paranoid? Not diagnosed, and I see a doctor regularly. Fringe? Depends on the beliefs of the person doing the judging. Safe? Yep, always. I am safe to be around when armed, because I exercise care, and it is safe to be a visitor to my home because I defend my home.
Paranoid? Not diagnosed, and I see a doctor regularly. Fringe? Depends on the beliefs of the person doing the judging. Safe? Yep, always. I am safe to be around when armed, because I exercise care, and it is safe to be a visitor to my home because I defend my home.
cc-hangfire
New member
As the OP first stated - old topic. And there are as many opinions as there are people. What’s right for each of us depends on our circumstances. With that said, I’ll play!
Yes I carry at home. Because;
A) Firearm security and personal control- Where’s my gun you ask? In my pocket or on my hip. Secure and under my control.
B) Response/reaction time: when you NEED a firearm, BY GEORGE YOU’LL NEED IT NOW
C) I’m not a fortune teller: I live in a nice neighborhood. My daily commute goes thru God’s country and among good people. So far I’ve been “over armed” so far my whole life. But even though the odds are low that I’ll ever need it, the consequences are extreme if I need it & don’t have it.
Yes I carry at home. Because;
A) Firearm security and personal control- Where’s my gun you ask? In my pocket or on my hip. Secure and under my control.
B) Response/reaction time: when you NEED a firearm, BY GEORGE YOU’LL NEED IT NOW
C) I’m not a fortune teller: I live in a nice neighborhood. My daily commute goes thru God’s country and among good people. So far I’ve been “over armed” so far my whole life. But even though the odds are low that I’ll ever need it, the consequences are extreme if I need it & don’t have it.
Aquila Blanca said:.The point is that living in a "good" area is not an assurance that bad things won't happen.
I think why is largely irrelevant, the Petits would have been better off (or at least no worse off) with a locked door.
Jeniva said:I think the concept of carrying in your own home depends on your neighborhood. Some people may not have the means to leave their current residence and feel it is a solution to carry in home for more safety. I think it depends on the circumstances of the tenant.
I think you should follow some of the links in this discussion and read about the Petit family. They lived one of the lowest crime rate high-end neighborhoods in America.
FireForged
New member
Bad things can happen in good neighborhoods but it doesnt mean that ambient risk is the same from place to place. There is a good reason that some places are called "the bad side of town". Level of assessed risk and security posture go hand in hand. More is some places and less in others. Its just common sense but it doesnt mean you stick your head in the sand. Everyone should have a reasonable default level of security that never wavers.
I wont beat up the the Petit family but it is certainly possible that these thugs may have been deterred if it were not so easy to get control of the house and occupants. They seemingly walked right in.
There is more money is the burbs..sure but there is also a different dynamic which often works against the criminal. I have lived in very rough places growing up and I can tell you that in most of the places I lived, they dont call police, dont talk to police, there are rarely any people willing to be a witnesses and when there are, they can be self serving and predictably unreliable. These are all elements that work in favor of criminals which is why there is so much crime in the rough neighborhoods. It is often the exact opposite in the "burbs" so criminals have to weigh risk vs gain vs consequence.
I wont beat up the the Petit family but it is certainly possible that these thugs may have been deterred if it were not so easy to get control of the house and occupants. They seemingly walked right in.
There is more money is the burbs..sure but there is also a different dynamic which often works against the criminal. I have lived in very rough places growing up and I can tell you that in most of the places I lived, they dont call police, dont talk to police, there are rarely any people willing to be a witnesses and when there are, they can be self serving and predictably unreliable. These are all elements that work in favor of criminals which is why there is so much crime in the rough neighborhoods. It is often the exact opposite in the "burbs" so criminals have to weigh risk vs gain vs consequence.
Aguila Blanca
Staff
This is basically what I wrote in post #40:FireForged said:Bad things can happen in good neighborhoods but it doesnt mean that ambient risk is the same from place to place. There is a good reason that some places are called "the bad side of town". Level of assessed risk and security posture go hand in hand. More is some places and less in others. Its just common sense but it doesnt mean you stick your head in the sand. Everyone should have a reasonable default level of security that never wavers.
Each of us has his/her own level of comfort. I don't accept that there are "safe" or "good" areas where one doesn't have to worry about crime. The odds may be better in the so-called "good" area, ...
They did walk right in. But they were going in whether or not they found an unlocked door. They had spotted Mrs. Petit and one of the daughters during the day and followed them from downtown Cheshire (such as it is) to their house. This wasn't a random hit, it was targeted. The invasion was going to go down irrespective of locked doors.FireForged said:I wont beat up the the Petit family but it is certainly possible that these thugs may have been deterred if it were not so easy to get control of the house and occupants. They seemingly walked right in.
And I don't think an alarm would have prevented the invasion. If an alarm had gone off the two thugs might have just grabbed whatever they could get and run, so the wife and two daughters might not have been killed, but think about how home alarms operate. My younger brother lived in an apartment in Cheshire when he was first married. I've been there. It's semi-rural suburban, meaning large-ish house lots, winding roads, lots of trees and landscaping, no sidewalks. When an alarm goes off, the first thing that happens is that a signal goes to the monitoring company. When they see the signal, they have to look up the telephone number, and then they call the house to ask if there's a problem. I periodically forget that my alarm is set and I go down to the basement, which is not deactivated by the "Interior" setting. It takes a minimum of a minute for the alarm company to call. Then it takes more time for the operator to ask if everything is okay. Let's say that in the case of a real "situation" it might take another 30 seconds for the operator to twig to the fact that the homeowner is in a bind. Then the alarm operator has to look up the number of the Cheshire police department, dial it, wait for a dispatcher to answer, and then explain to the dispatcher that there's a possible "situation" at [address]. I'd give that at least another minute.
So we're now at 2-1/2 minutes before the dispatcher even calls a patrol unit.
If Cheshire is like my town and the towns where I've done PD ride-alongs, the night shift has fewer officers on duty and fewer cars on the road than during the day, so they're stretched. Cheshire is very similar to my home town in many regards, and I know from having called the police a few times that the response time here is typically between ten and twenty minutes. If we want to be optimistic and call it ten, that's now 12-1/2 minutes from when the alarm was tripped to when a police car arrives at the address.
That's plenty of time for a pair of ex-felons who are out on parole to raise a fair amount of mayhem.
FireForged
New member
They did walk right in. But they were going in whether or not they found an unlocked door.
This may be what [you] believe but there are not too many badguys who are going to "go no matter what". Are there some? sure.. but its not the norm among these type of criminals. There are plenty of elements which may dissuade a badguy at many points during the lead up to violent predatory crime even after overt action has occurred. Badguys abort criminal attacks for this reason or that quite regularly, its common knowledge. Sure, these people were targeted but it doesnt mean that the badguys would have taken on any and all difficulties (no matter what). I watched some of the docu-drama on this crime and they seemingly changed their plans every 15 minutes. The whole thing seemed to be in a constant state of flux and it didnt take much for them to alter their plans and change directions several times. I am inclined to believe that if they had encountered difficulties getting into the home and perhaps alerted the occupant of their presence (early), they would likely have aborted.
You might be right but its just a hunch unless you have some unique
knowledge of these particular people or confessions they may have made.
And I don't think an alarm would have prevented the invasion. If an alarm had gone off the two thugs might have just grabbed whatever they could get and run, so the wife and two daughters might not have been killed, but think about how home alarms operate. My younger brother lived in an apartment in Cheshire when he was first married. I've been there. It's semi-rural suburban, meaning large-ish house lots, winding roads, lots of trees and landscaping, no sidewalks. When an alarm goes off, the first thing that happens is that a signal goes to the monitoring company. When they see the signal, they have to look up the telephone number, and then they call the house to ask if there's a problem. I periodically forget that my alarm is set and I go down to the basement, which is not deactivated by the "Interior" setting. It takes a minimum of a minute for the alarm company to call. Then it takes more time for the operator to ask if everything is okay. Let's say that in the case of a real "situation" it might take another 30 seconds for the operator to twig to the fact that the homeowner is in a bind. Then the alarm operator has to look up the number of the Cheshire police department, dial it, wait for a dispatcher to answer, and then explain to the dispatcher that there's a possible "situation" at [address]. I'd give that at least another minute.
If Cheshire is like my town and the towns where I've done PD ride-alongs, the night shift has fewer officers on duty and fewer cars on the road than during the day, so they're stretched. Cheshire is very similar to my home town in many regards, and I know from having called the police a few times that the response time here is typically between ten and twenty minutes. If we want to be optimistic and call it ten, that's now 12-1/2 minutes from when the alarm was tripped to when a police car arrives at the address.
Thats a whole lot of supposition based on very little. Its certainly not how it works around here and nobody is calling my house if the alarm goes off. If it turns out to be a false alarm I am looking to be sanctioned by the local municipalities alarm office if its happened more than once in the same year.
That's plenty of time for a pair of ex-felons who are out on parole to raise a fair amount of mayhem.
sure.. and keeping them outside beating the door down for as long as possible can certainly allow a person to exploit many things in their favor.
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Aguila Blanca
Staff
I don't know if I have "unique" knowledge, but I know a lot more than you probably saw in a docudrama. As I mentioned, my brother lived in Cheshire for several years -- in fact, not too far from where the Petit house was located. So I took a special interest in the case, and I read everything that came out on it, both in the immediate aftermath and for years thereafter, as the cases wound through the court system. I could be wrong, of course, but from all the statements given by both defendants, I have no doubt that they were going to enter that house. Period.FireForged said:You might be right but its just a hunch unless you have some unique
knowledge of these particular people or confessions they may have made.
As to the alarm system -- I don't know where you live, but where I live (and in Cheshire, where my brother lived and the crime took place) residential alarms don't go directly to the police. They go to an alarm company. When the alarm company gets a signal, the first thing they do is try to call the house to see if it's a false alarm. If there's no answer, or if whoever answers doesn't know the password, then they call the police.
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